


Staring Down Forever

by regenderate



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22626487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: After millions of years, Clara is ready to return to Gallifrey.But Gallifrey is no more.(Spoilers for Spyfall)
Relationships: Ashildr | Lady Me & Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Staring Down Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to a great conversation my Doctor Who WLW discord shortly after Spyfall aired for inspiring this!

Clara wasn’t sure how she knew it was time. All she could tell was that she had adventured all over the universe in her stolen TARDIS, she had seen friend after friend grow old and die, and now— well, now she was tired. Not physically, she didn’t get tired physically, but emotionally, she was tired. She was ready to exhale for the last time, let out the breath she had gathered into her lungs in that trap street in London so long ago.

The first thing she did was find Ashildr. They had traveled together, off and on, over the years— Ashildr didn’t always recognize Clara, but she always remembered the name from her journals. Clara could always count on her for companionship, even if thousands of years had passed between visits, and she was always grateful for it.

She decided to go somewhere near the end, this time. Not the very end— she’d seen Ashildr at the end of the universe, dejected and scared, and she didn’t want to be rubbing her fate in Ashildr’s face just when Ashildr was feeling her lack of fate the most. But she wanted an older Ashildr, one who had recorded millions of years of adventures, one who knew Clara both as a friend and as a literary hero from times gone by. 

She landed her TARDIS right outside Ashildr’s door. In her later years, Ashildr had chosen to live alone, sequestered away on a forested planet, only occasionally making the journey to the nearest town. Clara had visited her there a few times before, at various points in her travels. She left the TARDIS and knocked on the door in the special rhythm she and Ashildr had developed ages ago, after one day in the 23rd century when Ashildr hadn’t opened her door because she was worried about unwanted guests. Ever since then, Clara had used her own personal knock, and Ashildr always responded to it, no matter how long it had been.

Today was no exception. Ashildr was as composed as ever when she emerged, her face nearly expressionless in a way that would have been disconcerting if it didn’t mirror Clara’s own expression.

“Clara,” Ashildr said. “Come in. Would you like tea?”

Clara stepped across the threshold, into Ashildr’s home. 

“No, thank you,” she said. She didn’t eat or drink— all of her body’s processes had stopped, and she didn’t like to think what might happen if she tried to act like her body was dynamic, something that could take new things into it and use them. Ashildr always offered, but Clara always refused.

“All right, then,” Ashildr said, and she led Clara into her home. It was only one room, living room, bedroom, and kitchen all rolled into one, with a table and two chairs in one corner, a bed in another, and walls lined with bookshelves, each holding row after row of identical notebooks in various states of disrepair. Ashildr sat down at the table, and Clara sat across from her. Even after all these years, their visits retained a certain formality: their backs were perfectly straight, their voices controlled, and they spoke in language that one might use for an interview of some kind.

“What brings you here today?” Ashildr asked. “Another adventure?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Clara said. “I want you to come with me to Gallifrey.”

Ashildr started. “Gallifrey? But—”

“Yes,” Clara said. Ashildr didn’t react, and Clara rushed on. “You can take my TARDIS right back here. Or anywhere. I’ll give it instructions. I just don’t want to do this alone.”

Ashildr’s face smoothed into a smile. “Of course I’ll come with you. I have always been fond of you, you know.”

“And I you,” Clara replied. 

“Shall we go now?” Ashildr asked.

“I thought we might.”

They walked into the TARDIS together as if they were just going on another adventure. Clara led the way, and Ashildr trailed behind.

“Remember this?” Clara asked as they stepped into the console room.

“’Course I do,” Ashildr said. “You were only here last month.”

“Was I?” Clara grinned. “Suppose I don’t really keep track.”

“Didn’t.”

Clara turned. “Sorry?”

“If you’re about to die,” Ashildr said, as stoic as ever, “you should use the past tense.”

“I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t thought about it.” Clara shrugged. “Do you want to help pilot?”

“Of course.” 

Ashildr took her place at the console— she and Clara had taught themselves how to fly together, after all, and it seemed to be some kind of muscle memory, because no matter how long it had been, Ashildr always approached the controls with the same degree of confidence. This time, though, she looked up before she touched anything.

“You’re sure about this?”

Clara nodded.

“It’s been a long time,” she said. “I’ve seen everything I wanted to see. Done everything I wanted to do. Which must mean it’s time for the next adventure, right?”

Ashildr didn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” Clara said. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. I know it’s a difficult subject for you. I just—”

“It’s fine,” Ashildr said. “I understand. But it’s a very permanent decision.”

“It’s time,” Clara said. “I’ve had millions of years more than I was meant to.” 

“I suppose so.” Ashildr was staring blankly at the controls. She took a deep breath, and then her head snapped up. “Right. Let’s get you to Gallifrey.”

The jump was easy, easier perhaps than any other trip Clara had taken. One moment, they were in the woods by Ashildr’s home, and the next, they had moved across a great expanse of time and space to Gallifrey. The TARDIS’s engines ground to a halt, and all of a sudden Clara was acutely aware of her lack of heartbeat, the breath caught in the back of her throat, the complete stillness around her. She blinked, and then Ashildr was in front of her, staring right into her eyes.

“Are you ready?”

And then the most complete relief flooded Clara. This was it. After what had to be millions of years of running through time and space, taking care of things, exploring, having adventures, she was finally going to release the tension in her muscles, let out the sigh she’d been holding in for so long. 

“I’m ready,” she said. 

Ashildr grabbed Clara’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting it fall.

“I’ll miss you,” she said. 

“It’s been an honor traveling with you,” Clara replied.

And then they both turned to the TARDIS doors. Clara took Ashildr’s hand, letting the warmth seep into her palm, and together they pushed the doors open and stepped out—

And immediately ground to a halt.

Something was wrong.

Gallifrey was barren. 

Totally and completely barren.

There was no one there. The orange sky, usually breathtaking, made the Citadel look as if it were on fire. The towers that Clara remembered as soaring pinnacles of Gallifreyan civilization were crumbling, and the hum of the city had been replaced by complete silence.

“We’re alone,” Clara said. Her voice echoed in the emptiness.

Ashildr took a couple of steps forward, pulling Clara with her. The rubble shifted under their feet, and they both scrambled back. 

“There has to be  _ someone _ ,” Ashildr said.

Clara shook her head. “Even the Time War didn’t destroy it like this.”

Ashildr said nothing.

“This was supposed to  _ be  _ here.”

“I know.”

“I was supposed to be able to come  _ back _ .” Clara’s voice cracked. It felt like a huge weight was crashing down on her, the same as she’d felt years ago when Ashildr had looked at her with such sorrow in her eyes and Clara had realized the raven was going to come for her. She had wanted so much more, then, but now she had  _ had  _ so much more. She had lived longer than she had thought possible. She had fixed things, saved worlds, made mistakes, traveled far and wide. She was  _ tired _ . She was  _ done _ . “I didn’t ask for this, you know,” she yelled in Ashildr’s direction. “I didn’t  _ want _ to be immortal.”

“I know,” Ashildr said, and Clara realized she was still holding Ashildr’s hand. She held tighter, clinging to the solid, consistent, tangible warmth. 

“I haven’t even been properly alive in millenia!”Her voice filled the ruin, echoing back, the only sound in the whole city.

Ashildr stepped closer to Clara. “I know.” 

“What even  _ happened _ ?” Clara demanded, crying out at the ruins. “Who could have done this? Gallifrey is stuck at the end of the universe! No one can even get in here!” 

“We got in here,” Ashildr pointed out.

“We have a TARDIS. And the only other person with a TARDIS is the Doctor, and the Doctor never—” Clara gasped. “He better not have! Oh, I’m going to  _ kill _ him! I can’t believe I can’t even  _ die _ ! The one thing every human is supposed to be able to do.” She stared up at the burnt orange sky. “I guess I waited too long, didn’t I? I wanted too much, and this is what I get for it.”

“It’s going to be all right.” Ashildr put her arm around Clara and guided her around. “Come on, let’s get back into the TARDIS.”

Clara stumbled back through the TARDIS doors. She made it to the console with one of Ashildr’s arms around her, the husk of the Citadel burned into her field of vision. Somehow she managed to twist the dials to launch the TARDIS into the time vortex. It continued its ambient whirring and beeping as if nothing had happened.

Clara sank to the floor. She was vaguely aware of Ashildr crouched next to her and the pressure of Ashildr’s hand on her back,, but all she could think about was the years stretching ahead of her, out and out and out… 

“How do you do it?” she asked. “How do you live for so long?”

“It helps that I don’t remember most of it,” Ashildr said, “but really, I do it because I have no other option. I’ve come to terms with it in much the same way most humans come to terms with dying.”

“I don’t understand,” Clara said. “I’ve been doing this whole near-immortality thing for a long time, but I never had to think about forever.” 

“Best if you don’t,” Ashildr said. “See, just like dying.” She paused. “Does it help if you think of this as an afterlife?”

“I don’t know,” Clara said. She straightened up. “All right, then. Let’s find the Doctor.”

It always took some time to track down the Doctor. This time was trickier, too, because they wanted to find a Doctor who knew about the destruction on Gallifrey, which ruled out pretty much every version of the Doctor Clara knew of.

Fortunately, the Doctor had a habit of hanging around Earth, and Clara had been avoiding him for long enough that she knew where to look. England, first of all, for some reason he always hung around England, and there was always some sort of chaos that got reported in news networks. She scrolled through articles, tweets, Facebook posts, and so on until she found something about a UFO in Sheffield. Another search revealed a large number of alien disturbances in Sheffield between 2018 and 2020, often accompanied by blurry pictures of the same four people. It had Doctor written all over it.

Clara and Ashildr chose a moment near the end of that time frame, figuring they’d be more likely to find a Doctor who knew about Gallifrey, and set the TARDIS in motion. They landed just outside a Sheffield estate (according to their research, the home of a giant spider infestation, at least three alien-centric plots, and, more than occasionally, a strange blue box) and stepped out. Nothing was amiss— they had timed their landing to coincide with the end of a conflict between the Sheffield government and a group of very lost Adipose— but there  _ was  _ the telltale blue box, sitting on a curb, looking entirely innocuous. Clara hadn’t seen the Doctor’s TARDIS in years, and it shocked her a little. She stopped in her tracks. 

“You all right?” Ashildr asked.

Clara nodded, resolute. She had butterflies in her stomach— she hadn’t known she  _ could _ have butterflies in her stomach. She hadn’t seen the Doctor in so long. He hadn’t remembered her, the last time. Would he remember her this time? 

She didn’t have much time to wonder. She and Ashildr had just begun to approach the TARDIS when a tall man stepped out, holding a phone to his ear. When he saw Clara, there was no flicker of recognition, but she took two steps forward, and he held up a finger and said into the phone, “Hang on a second.” 

Clara hesitated. 

“Can I help you?” the man asked.

“Doctor?” Clara asked. She looked him up and down. “You’ve really calmed down a bit, fashion-wise, haven’t you?”

“Sorry,” the man said. “I’m not the Doctor.” 

Clara opened her mouth to answer, but then she heard a voice yelling her name: “Clara?  _ Clara _ ?” She turned to see a woman running towards her, ridiculous coat flapping behind. 

Well, that was more like it.

“Doctor?”

“Clara!” the Doctor cried. She stopped in her tracks.“And Ashildr, too? What are you doing here?”

“How do you all know each other?” the man asked.

“Clara, Ashildr, this is Ryan,” the Doctor said. “Ryan, Clara and Ashildr. Or, what are you going by these days?”

“Nothing, really,” Ashildr said. “I don’t get out much.”

“Clara used to travel with me,” the Doctor said to Ryan, “and Ashildr— well, that’s a big long story. Maybe later?”

“Good meeting you,” Ryan said.

“You as well,” Clara said. 

“Clara’s brilliant,” the Doctor told Ryan. “Ryan’s brilliant too,” she told Clara. “And Yaz, and Graham, my other friends, also brilliant, they’ll be here soon. Anyway! What brings you here?”

“I was looking for you,” Clara said. She looked the Doctor right in the eyes. “Listen, Doctor, Gallifrey’s gone.”

Maybe there had been a better way to say that. Maybe she could have asked what the Doctor knew first. Maybe she could have eased into the news. But she just needed to get the words out, and fortunately, the Doctor didn’t look surprised. Her mouth settled into a grim line, and she nodded.

“Gallifrey’s  _ gone _ ,” Clara repeated. “Doctor—”

“I don’t know what happened,” the Doctor said. “Except it involves the Master— Missy— you remember her?”

Clara made a face.

“I remember.”

“He did it. But he left a message about why, and I’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”

“So— if Gallifrey’s gone— what does that mean?” Clara asked. “For me?”

Recognition dawned on the Doctor’s face. “Oh, Clara,” she said, her voice so soft it was practically a whisper. “You were trying to die.”

Clara turned her face away.

“You were, weren’t you?” the Doctor asked. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I wish I knew how to help.”

“That’s all right,” Clara said around the lump in her throat. “Really. It’s not your fault. We just wanted to find out what happened.”

The Doctor pulled Clara into a hug, and Clara hugged her back, gripping her jacket in tight fists. To her mortification, she realized that tears were falling. She hadn’t cried in so long, she had almost forgotten she could, but now she was sobbing right into the Doctor’s shoulder, the periwinkle of her jacket turning dark blue with the wetness. The Doctor rubbed her back, keeping a stream of comfort running into Clara’s ear, with things like, “I’m so sorry,” and, “It’s going to be okay,” and, “You’ll be all right, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that,” Clara said, but she was already feeling a little better.

“Oh, try me,” the Doctor said, and Clara got a flash of the Doctor she’d first met, the one who was full of flair and who thought he could do just about anything _.  _

“All right, then,” Clara said. 

Footsteps approached, and Clara looked behind her to see two more people approaching. Before she could say anything, Ryan was ushering the newcomers into the TARDIS, explaining the situation as best he could.

“That’s Graham and Yaz,” the Doctor explained. “We just had a whole— thing—”

“The Adipose,” Clara said. 

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “Ryan was tracking them with the TARDIS, and Graham and Yaz were helping me.”

“Suppose they’re living my sort of life, then,” Clara said. “Traveling with you. Getting into trouble.”

“I told them it was dangerous,” the Doctor said, her expression dead serious. “Promise.” Clara didn’t see any of the Doctor she had known in that. It left her with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

“Well, you’re hard to resist,” she said, equally serious.

The Doctor scrunched up her face in a way that Clara could only interpret as discomfort.

“Sorry,” Clara said. 

“That’s all right,” the Doctor said. “So, Clara, where are you off to next?”

“I’ve no idea,” Clara admitted. “I didn’t think there would  _ be  _ a next.”

“You know,” the Doctor said, “sometimes when I regenerate, the TARDIS just spits me out somewhere completely random, and I feel so much better about the whole thing.”

“Thanks,” Clara said. She glanced at the Doctor’s TARDIS. “Do you— get tired of this whole thing, then? Being alive?”

“Course I do,” the Doctor said. “But, you know, I  _ can _ die. Almost didn’t regenerate this last time, you know. Was so afraid of becoming someone new.” She shrugged. “Turned out all right in the end, didn’t it?”

“But you can change,” Clara said. “I’m stuck, aren’t I? In this body, in this  _ heartbeat _ ?”

“Oh, that’s just your body,” the Doctor said. “Your mind is brilliant, isn’t it? You can change all you want.” The Doctor grinned. “Besides, if you really need a change, you can always come with me again.”

Clara smiled. 

“What,” she asked, “and leave Ashildr all alone?”

“She could come too!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“I would never,” Ashildr said from behind Clara.

“Maybe later,” Clara said.

“Come find me anytime,” the Doctor said. “I’m glad you’re around, Clara.”

“You, too, Doctor.” Clara hugged the Doctor one more time, and then the Doctor went off into her TARDIS and Clara and Ashildr went back into theirs. Clara stood at the console, staring at the controls.

“So,” she said to Ashildr. “You want to come on an adventure?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Clara grinned. 

“Right, then,” she said. “Next stop, anywhere.”

And she launched the TARDIS into the time vortex.

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all my wifi's out so I had to USB transfer this to my phone to post it. Anyway I haven't published something outside of a gift exchange or fan project in so long! And I so rarely work with Moffat-era Who but I have so many thoughts about Clara right now...


End file.
